Scraton,Spinoza(London: Routledge, 1999); Steven Nadler,Spinoza: A Life
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Michael Della Rocca,Spinoza
(Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2008). For an interesting study of Spinoza’s thought in
relation to the other Continental rationalists, see John Cottingham,The Rationalists
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). The generally accepted “classic” commen-
tary on the Ethicsremains Harry Austryn Wolfson,The Philosophy of Spinoza:
Unfolding the Latent Processes of His Reasoning(1934; reprint New York:
Schocken, 1969). For more recent discussions of Spinoza’s Ethics,see Jonathan
Bennett,A Study of Spinoza’sEthics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1984); Edwin
Curley,Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza’sEthics (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988); Genevieve Lloyd,Spinoza and theEthics
(Oxford: Routledge, 1996); Steven Nadler,Spinoza’sEthics:An Introduction
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); and J. Thomas Cook,Spinoza’s
Ethics:A Reader’s Guide(London: Continuum, 2007). For collections of essays
on Spinoza, see S. Paul Kashap, ed.,Studies in Spinoza(Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1972); Robert W. Shahan and J.I. Biro, eds.,Spinoza: New Per-
spectives(Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978); Richard Kennington,
ed.,The Philosophy of Baruch Spinoza(Washington, DC: Catholic University of
America Press, 1980); Don Garrett, ed.,The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); and Yirmiahu Yorel and Gideon
Segal, eds.,Spinoza(New York: Ashgate, 2000). Richard Mason,The God of
Spinoza: A Philosophical Study(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) is a
study of Spinoza’s philosophy of religion while the Jewish character of Spinoza’s
thought is discussed in Yirmiyahu Yovel’s pair of books,The Marrano of Reasonand
The Adventures of Immanence(both Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1991) and Steven Smith,Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997).ETHICS (in part)
PARTI
CONCERNINGGOD
Definitions- By that which is self-caused I mean that whose essence involves existence; or
that whose nature can be conceived only as existing. - A thing is said to be finite in its own kind [in suo genere finita] when it can be
limited by another thing of the same nature. For example, a body is said to be finite
472 BARUCHSPINOZA
Baruch Spinoza,The EthicsBooks I & II, translated by Samuel Shirley & edited by Seymour Feldman.
Copyright © 1992 by Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing
Company, Inc. All rights reserved.